Scientists recently discovered a secret, otherworldly “brine pool” at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. But while it might look enticing and magical, you definitely don’t want to go scuba diving in it.

“It’s warm, but super-salty,” biogeochemist Scott Wankel told the science website Seeker, adding that its 65-degree temperature often lures poor, unsuspecting crabs and other bottom feeders looking for food. “When they fall in, they die and get pickled and preserved.”

The so-called “Jacuzzi of despair” — located 3,300 feet underwater — is a surprisingly pretty “living mat of bacteria and salt deposits.” The water contained within the brine pool’s perimeter is about four to five times saltier than the surrounding gulf, creating a killer solution that forms an “underwater cauldron of toxic chemicals,” including methane gas and hydrogen sulfide.

In fact, the only organisms that can withstand such noxious conditions are bacteria, tube worms and shrimp.

Yet scientists are hoping that by studying the kinds of organisms that thrive in this habitat, they can learn about life on other planets.

“There [are] a lot of people looking at these extreme habitats on Earth as models for what we might discover when we go to other planets,” Temple University’s Erik Cordes, one of the scientists who discovered the site, told Seeker. “The technology development in the deep sea is definitely going to be applied to the worlds beyond our own.”

Plus, it’s really cool.

“It was one of the most amazing things in the deep sea,” said Cordes. “You go down into the bottom of the ocean and you are looking at a lake or a river flowing. It feels like you are not on this world.”